


Soaring Waters

by Casijaz



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Antiva, Antiva City, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-27
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-04-29 10:56:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5124908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Casijaz/pseuds/Casijaz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This will encompass the background stories for the companions and other characters interacted with in Dragon Age: Waking Sea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soaring Waters

I had always loved the applause. People cheering for me, whistling, screaming my name and the clapping ringing in my ears leaving my name echoing after the praise had died. At some times, I even preferred the public acts over the acts that required a finer, more precise technique as just for the praise I got afterwards. Because I deserved it. Over time I may have aged a bit since my debut, and I won’t be able to take on roles such as fair _lady Diane_  or co-star as  _Julia_ , female counterpart of the most well-known pair of star-crossed Antivan lovers, but my technique… I have been able to get standing ovations when I showed the crowd but a glimpse of what I was able to do. My timing and precision are flawless. I know exactly when it was the right moment to act, and encouraged my fellow actors to do the same. The right time and even the smallest movements can be so important to a play. Ah, and the many interpretations of the script, oh Maker, so many. I despise it when people who dare call themselves of the same profession I so dearly hold on to think that there is only one way to portray a character. Despicable. Scripts are like humans. You cannot see how to interpret them at first glance. You have to study them, learn from them, hold them  _dearly_. Even a savant like myself has needed to, time by time, take in characterizations and learned to perform them.

With this in mind I went off the stage to my dresser to wipe the make-up off of my face. The applause coming to a halt, I heard small movement of feet behind me.

“Don’t you think you’re getting a bit too old for this, Cesar?” I turned around to find my brother, barely being lit by a candle in the corner. His face was slightly deformed due to the bad lighting but that was not the only thing that seemed different.

“Wrinkles, brother. Wrinkles.” I said to him. “They’re all over your face. You seem worried.”   
He sat down in the carved Orlesian mahogany chair I got for Satinalia that year.

“Aren’t you disappointed, Cesar? Aren’t you? I mean… look where life has gotten us to.”  
He was referring to the fact that he had always chosen work over personal matters, which left him wifeless and childless, even after having been married twice. As for me, well, I always make sure to live life to the fullest.

“Speak for yourself brother. I am perfectly happy here.”  
The life at sea had made his once boyish, tender face rough and dry. The salty water had gotten into his skin, leaving him looking like a desert-dweller rather than a man of water.

There was a moment of silence, that felt like an hour.  
“How’s the trade been going, brother?” I bothered asking.  
While I was busy following my dream, he had been trying to fix the damage brought on by our family by continuing our great-grandfather’s trading legacy. Damage, done by an absent grandfather, and a father who’d taken up the profession of playwright. Our mother had to start serving in order to bring food to the table. While our name, Duovertis, might had sullied by the last two generations, the name itself carries a great deal of prestige. Our heritage is one of traders, dealing with far-off nations and exotic goods all over Thedas. I, however, had decided to continue the damaging tradition and sully our name once more by running of with an acting company in hopes of making it to the marble stages of Val-Royeaux.

“It’s hard brother.” he sighed.

I finished taking away the last spot of powder on my face. I took off my wig and scratched the back of my head.  
“Giacomo.”  
I sat down on a bench, slightly crooked and faded in colour. It needed fixing, but nothing ever came of it.  
“I’m sure it is.”  
One downside of my career as an actor was that it had slowly made its way into my regular life. Sometimes, I could not distinguish acting out emotions from experiencing them. This scared me. My brother, knowing me like he did, was able to do so. At this moment, what I felt, wasn’t acting. The only thing I had to do to get out of that confusion, was to look into his eyes. His dark, sad eyes I hadn’t seen in years.  
“You need to come home more often.” Was what I said.

He looked at the ground, his eyes lingering on one specific point, doubtfully, then he sharply turned his face up to me.  
“I know, but you know me better, Cesar.”  
In these times, acting provided a distance I needed to dull the pain. Trips could take up to two years. Contact would be little.  
I hated him. I loved him. I hated him for constantly leaving me. I loved him for always being there for me. My brother, while I feared he’d be resentful at me for running away, had supported my decision and even sent me money when I had little. My brother had been there for me, always. My trail of thought was interrupted by his voice.

“Cesar!” he spoke. “I can write to you!”  
His eyes, dull and lifeless, had suddenly gotten somewhat of their former shine back. He used to have the brightest green eyes that lit up with even the smallest hints of happiness. My mouth responded, curling up into what I should say, my distinctive smile which hadn’t shown itself in a long time.

“Yes, yes, yes you should!”  
I couldn’t stop talking.  
“You’ll really write me, yes? So I’ll get to know the trader’s life – no, not only that, I’ll get a look at a sailor’s life! Oh! Men of the sea, show me your rough and vulgar ways of life! What does one do surrounded by nothing but a vast sea of blue!”

Giacomo had been putting on his coat again, ready to leave, not paying attention to my speech as he never did.  
“Brother we’ll write!”  
With great gusto, and a hint of a hug, I sent him off. I sent him off, knowing he’ll sail again. I sent my brother off, to a fate I had never seen coming.

His writings never reached me. Sure, his letters arrived and made their way into my hands but I stopped opening them. I made the mistake of opening them once, but all I saw were shallow, common messages about the weather at sea or the cook’s terrible cooking. I didn’t know what to expect from him. Honestly I had wished for longer, meaningful letters. Just for once I wanted to read his thoughts like he read mine. I wanted to see if he ever doubted himself. I wanted to see if he ever got scared, if he ever, – my brother, who had placed a mask on his face even a seasoned actor like myself could not read. My brother, who never showed his feelings nor his thoughts.

Ten years passed. He kept sending letters, and I kept them all. By now, the pile had gotten so big it could reach over my desk had I’d stacked them in a single row.  
Then one morning, out of boredom, I started reading them, in order.

His first couple of letters were the same. Boring, plain, instances of his daily life, yet which somehow now felt like they brought me closer to him. An uneasy feeling crept its way into my mind and stomach, missing him so, yet I wouldn’t even read his damned letters. After rummaging through half the pile there was a sudden change in writing, however. The uneasy feeling grew worse. He had written he’d stopped going out into the open sea for some time. Apparently, he had delivered cargo all over the place, like he used to, and made considerable profit. Uncharacteristically, he had decided he’d stop sailing all together, and spend his time in our hometown, Antiva City. Our hometown, which I remembered smelling of booze and leather, he described smelling like roses and coffee. He traded from home, a villa looking out on the sea he’d been so keen to sail years before. In the next few letters, a storm rose.

My eyes widened and it felt my stomach dropped through the floor, leaving me with gagging notions.

My sweet brother had found love. He had gone out of his normal judgement and run off with an elven woman named Adelle. My brother, he had written me for words of advice, I read desperately as he desperately wrote his thoughts on paper. He had asked me for help, asked me if I would approve of his actions. Throwing my desk aside I thought “of course”. Those words he had written down were as old as five years. My fist clenched my heart as I breathed in short gasps.

He. Had. Needed. Me. And I wasn’t there.

He wrote down he didn’t regret his actions. Not a year later he was overcome with joy as his wife had given birth to two elf-blooded children. A joy which did not last for long, as she died not within two years after. Again, he had written to me in desperation, in need and pain and I wasn’t there for him. A brother who’d done everything for me, and I had done nothing. Nothing at all. After all this time, would he still accept my words if I wrote to him? The last letter he’d written me was written not half a year ago. He had asked if I could come and visit him, Antonio and Viola. If I wrote him back, would he – perhaps there was still a chance. I wouldn’t have failed my brother. I wouldn’t have failed life. I knew now what I felt clutching my chest and stomach. Homesickness. I missed my brother, I missed home. I wrote him immediately.

Six months passed. Cesar had moved his theatre company to Antiva City, hoping he would locate his brother. After writing down alterations to the lines in a play, he gently placed his pen on the desk. The frills from his custom made chemise swiftly touched one of the candles. He rolled up his sleeves, sat down with a sigh and let his hand go through his messy locks of hair. He glanced over the desk, then once more to the window. The dusk had made way for darkness, thunder and rain. Yet, in between the sounds of thunder he could distinguish the sound of knocking. He went to the door and upon opening it, he saw a Chantry sister holding the hands of two small children with dark hair that looked at him, doubtfully. Cesar stared confusedly at the Chantry sister, but while glancing at one of the children locked eyes with them. Eyes filled with tears and sadness, almost melancholic – no, too melancholic, for such a small child. They were his brother's eyes, as his own.

**Author's Note:**

> \--- Lady Diane and Julia would be Ophelia and Juliet from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Romeo & Juliet, respectively.
> 
> \--- Cesar mentions playing female roles in plays while he is a man. As Thedas is supposedly set in the European middle ages (before the 17th century in our terms at least) women would not be able to take on acting and men would have to take on female roles in plays.
> 
> \--- Plays before the 16th century in Europe were mostly liturgical dramas, mystery plays and morality plays (the upper class might engage in masques). These were centred around Biblical verses and morals, and were performed to teach the illiterate public the Bible. In Thedas I guess the same thing goes: there are plenty of guilds (not professional actors, rather people part of a crafting profession) who perform bits of the chant all around Thedas for the general public. However around the time I place Thedas to be in a different type of theatre rose, namely the association of theatre as an art and the drama we are familiar with today.


End file.
